SLEEPY EYE – Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s squared of against New Ulm Cathedral for the 103rd time, and possibly the last, Friday night. Cathedral holds the winning record of 52-50-1 with its 30-8 loss to St. Mary’s on Friday.

Scoring was held null to start the first quarter. Opening the second quarter was a defensive stop by the Knights (4-3), on a fourth-and-1 at their 27-yard line. The following play, Nick Strate connected a pass to Nathan Schroepfer for 52 yards for the first and goal. Strate carried the ball into the end zone for the touchdown, Andrick Sanchez brought in a reception, for the 2-point conversion.

With 6:24 left in the first half, Strate found Schroepfer in the back of the end zone for a 35-yard completion against great coverage from the Greyhounds.

“Fourth-and-long, [Strate] threw a perfect ball and [Schroepfer] made a great catch. That’s two players making a great play,” St. Marys coach Brent Kucera said.

Cathedral (3-4) answered its following possession with a 3-yard touchdown carry by Nathan Hauser ending the scoring for the half.

“Both teams played really hard, it was a typical Cathedral-St. Mary’s game where both teams put a lot of effort on the field,” Cathedral coach Denny Lux said.

St. Mary’s defensive back Cole Owens intercepted a Kasey Kuck pass and returned the ball to inside the opposing 7-yard line with 8:27 left to play.

“It’s pretty windy here, [Kuck] threw it up and I just got to it, we were running a Cover 3 and I just read the quarterback,” Owens said.

Owens ended with 80 yards rushing from seven carries with one interception for the Knights.

Cathedral put together three strong defensive stops before Schroepfer carried a fourth-and-goal into the end zone for St. Mary’s. Cathedral’s Mark Schommer was credited with a tackle for a loss during the drive.

“We played well defensively on the goal line, we have to give credit to the whole defense as we played our hearts out,” Kuck said.

Max Heiderscheidt reached up as he knocked a Kuck pass out of the air, Heiderscheidt stuck with the ball on a wild second effort to nab an interception for the Knights.

Hauser led the Greyhounds with 29 rushing yards and a touchdown. Jacob Manderfeld was 7-of-11 passing for 70 yards.

Defensively Tyler Wilson had 14 tackles and Joey Griebel tallied nine tackles.

St Mary’s was led by Schreopfer with 122 yards rushing from 26 carries and 111 yards in the air.

Both teams end the regular season Wednesday with Cathedral playing at Wabasso and St. Mary’s playing Cedar Mountain/Comfrey at Morgan.